


exceptions to the rule (Of Spoons)

by Drake, Ghrelt



Series: we're meant to find each other [2]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Flashbacks, M/M, comfort post-hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:48:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25447867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drake/pseuds/Drake, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghrelt/pseuds/Ghrelt
Summary: Joe is the big spoon, but as with all things, there are exceptions.Some deaths are harder to get past, than others.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: we're meant to find each other [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1841152
Comments: 72
Kudos: 714





	exceptions to the rule (Of Spoons)

**Author's Note:**

> sequel to [i'll crawl home to him](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25398259) and though you do not have to read that one, you'll probably be wondering why Joe is grappling with drowning 
> 
> Ghrelt and I are on a roll, and we've got at least one more in the pipeline to come/??? 
> 
> comments feed us, and make the plot bunnies go wild <3

Joe is uncharacteristically quiet at the bar, nursing his dark beer as they decide on Booker’s fate. As he stands out there with an expression Joe can’t quite read, and he’s torn between wanting to go out there and strangle the man himself, yet unable to even meet his gaze.

Whenever he wants to speak, to say something, he feels the weight of the water around his throat, of it forcing its way into his lungs every time he tried to scream- 

Nicky reaches under the table to rest his hand on Joe’s thigh, a calming weight to ground him. Joe’s still… off. Since they were taken. Restless. Jittery. It’s not like him. Nicky’s chest hurts. For the betrayal. What Booker put them through. But also on Booker’s behalf. Knowing how his existence has plagued him so, to do this thing to his own family. And for that, he’ll miss the bastard. The little brother he’d make bets with who always knew the best bookshops and bakeries. A pain in the ass, to be sure. But theirs. Love and grief. Complicated, messy things.

Joe swallows hard, focusing on Nicky’s hand on his thigh, the grounding touch, and takes a long drink of his beer to pull himself back. And buy a little time. Before he says there has to be a price. That Booker can’t just walk back into the group as if he didn’t almost cost them everything.

That hurts too. Nicky wants to forgive him. Because forgiving him is easier than holding him accountable. Than forcing him to face what he chose to do to them. But he nods. Joe is right. He always is. And he won’t trade Joe’s wellbeing for Booker’s. He chose this. The price. Over family.

Andy glances back and forth between them both. She understands. She knows Booker’s pain, and she’s at fault too. She encouraged it, helped it grow, by showing him that side of her alone. But at the end of it, he decided to turn them in. To go behind their backs and betray them. It’s the not-asking, that is the crime. Sacrificing Joe and Nicky so that he could have a hope for an end to this. It wasn’t about choices, it was about what he wanted. The only question left is the punishment.

“I only ask that the exile not be permanent. Whatever else, he is still one of us,” Nicky finally says.

It takes Joe a second to react outwardly. And finally, he nods. “Yes. He is,” he says, the words coming slow. “He deserves the opportunity to earn a second chance.” After all, did he and Nicky not start as mortal enemies? 

There’s a part of Joe, too, that wonders what would happen if they  _ didn’t _ take Booker back. If he would turn into a true enemy. That thought alone is enough to convince him that a temporary punishment is what is needed here. After all, they did make it out. They didn’t lose Andy. He didn’t lose Nicky.

“A hundred years,” she says. A long time in Booker’s life. Half his existing years. But not so long for the rest. And who knew what could happen in the intervening time?

Fate had its ways.

A hundred years was a fair price. And it held its own hidden dagger - if Andy was mortal now, she wouldn’t be here for it. Joe nods once, and stands to go get another drink. He has no intention of watching their conversation. The wounds still too raw for that.

Nicky nods. “Yes. A hundred years. Will you tell him?” He’s already rising to his feet and moving to follow Joe.

“I will,” she says to his retreating back, heaving a sigh as she stands. Some days are harder than others. And today? Today is much, much harder than most.

Joe glances over his shoulder, meet’s Nile’s gaze, and knows immediately that she’s already watching Andy’s back as he heads for the bar. She’ll fit in just fine. And they’ll all be a little more protective over Andy for the foreseeable future. He thinks the way she’s sure to growl about it will at least be entertaining.

He picks an open spot, leaning against the stone of the bar that’s been here for five hundred years, a bar they’ve visited often. The stone hasn’t changed, even as everything else has. It’s familiar, warm. He was going to order another drink, but considering they seem to be leaving, he’ll just pay the tab so they can get out.

Nicky slides his arm around Joe, slotting himself in against his side. “ _ You alright _ ?” he says softly in Arabic.

Joe leans into the touch, the warmth. “ _ I will be, _ ” he replies, relaxing at the warmth of Nicky’s voice in his own tongue. He pays with cash, tipping his head back to their table so the bartender knows which tab it is, leaving enough, plus an ample tip on top.

Nicky’s hand rests on Joe’s hip and secretly he just wants to get him alone. Away from all this. To let him breathe without having to pretend. To ask him what has him so rattled. But he’d never do so with an audience. As close as they all are, he would not expose him so when he’s obviously distraught. Well. Obvious to him. But one feels it if his heart misses a beat.

“C’mon,” Joe says softly. “Let’s go.” He doesn’t know where. Which safehouse. Where they could even go. Maybe they’ll get a hotel. He could use a bed that doesn’t stab through the mattress with rotting springs and no draft and hot water- yeah. Anything but another cold wash. 

They wait in the stairs for Andy to finish saying goodbye, each understanding this is hardest for her. That this feels like a failure and a loss and a betrayal all at once. Together, they turn from their brother, leaving him to his grief and his bitterness.

Nicky’s not sure this will help. Not Booker, anyways. The rest of them? Maybe. But him? The last thing he needs is to be alone. But the decision is made. He’ll abide by the group’s decision.

And hope that destiny is kind enough to bring them together sooner rather than later.

Joe doesn’t much care what Booker needs. Booker decided his needs outweighed the safety of the rest of them, so he can think on that decision for a good few decades and then come back. He just stares Booker down as Andy climbs up the stairs, puts a hand on her lower back, and turns after her to leave the traitor on the shore. 

They’re quiet. Subdued, as they climb into the car with Andy at the wheel and head… anywhere but here.

Nile takes shotgun, leaving the men to canoodle in the back seat. Or so the smirk she flashes them says.

Joe expresses his amusement with a soft huff, but takes the opening where it’s given. Who needed a seatbelt when a car crash was only an inconvenience? So he climbs in the back and presses himself to Nicky’s side, sliding across the seat to end up in the middle.

Nicky, as always, puts his seatbelt on. He does drag Joe into his lap though, breathing deep of him as he pulls him in against his chest.

Joe twists, putting his back against the door, the old window crank, and just exhales slow, keeping his breathing steady. Calm. He has Nicky here, so it’s easier, now.

He presses his face to Yusuf’s neck. Whispers in his love’s language, “ _ I am here. I have you _ .”

Joe is three breaths from falling apart. It’s in every line of his body.

Andy glances in the rear view mirror. She can read the two men well enough to know they’re upset, but she doesn’t comment.

Hell, she’s upset too.

Joe is determined to hold on until it’s just the two of them. Nile is so new, so exposed to the live wire of pain that this existence could be, that he refuses to put any more of it upon her shoulders. He doesn’t have the words for the things writhing around in his head, anyway. Loudest of all,  _ We left Quynh to That.  _

He’s a mess after- after less than a few days. He thinks. Regardless. Days. She’s been there for centuries. And they still haven’t found her. 

“Where to, Boss?” Nicky says, meeting Andy’s gaze in the mirror.

“Out of here. We’ll stop in France for the night. Keep moving after that,” she says. Deciding between the tunnel and a ferry.

“A real hotel this time?” he asks hopefully. 

Or any place with lots of hot water. He wants to sit in a bath until his skin has wrinkled off his bones.

”Better. You remember the farm? Near Rochefort-en-Terre?” One of their nicer, and thus rarely used, safehouses. Power and the warm trappings of the current century. 

“Near that dairy farm.” The one that was there over a century ago. “Yes. I remember.”

“We’ll stop there for tonight. Carry on after we’ve rested.” And it has two cottages, another of the features that she and Booker had liked about it. Meant that Joe and Nicky could get some privacy. Though this time, for different reasons than usual. 

That should do nicely. “It sounds perfect.” He presses his lips into Joe’s hair.

The tickle of Nicky’s breath against Joe’s hair is a sensation he fixates on. The warmth of it, as he murmurs softly. “Yeah. I missed that place,” he says, with a little smile. It got beautiful sunrise views - the kind he would very much enjoy watching with Nicky in bed.

Nicky tucks himself into the corner, closing his eyes with his arms still slung around Joe. “Wake me when it’s my turn to drive,” he says.

Andy glances back at them, chuckling softly and shaking her head.

Nile glances up in the mirror, watching until they both relax into sleep. “they always like that?” she asks softly. She has a lot of learning to do, about them. 

“Always,” she says with a too-fond smile and a searing pain in her chest. These are the ones she didn’t fail. Can’t fail.

Booker…

He deserved better. From her. It should never have come to that.

Nile leans back in her seat, watching out the windshield. “I’ll drive before him,” she says, and lets the silence reign for the rest of the drive.

Andy decides on the tunnel. No waiting for a ferry, time spent sitting idle when they might be found. Even if they had no idea who they were hunting for. Better safe than sorry, flee the country for a good decade or two. 

Everything hurts, her chest even more than the gunshot wound in her side, though the two pains are intertwined. Nile restitched it, after their first stop, and Andy wonders how many more times she’s going to have to do that. She doesn’t stop driving though, as they get closer in the dying light of the sunset, her headlights on as they drive down narrow, winding, brush-edged roads. Past a quiet village and up into the hillsides, where the farm is tucked in against the foothills, old trees guarding the light within from bleeding out into the night. 

Nicky blinks awake when the sound of the tires on the road changes, alert instantly without seeming so to anyone else paying attention. He strokes Yusuf’s back, aching for the moment when they can be truly themselves, alone with each other. When he tells Nicky what’s wrong.

Everything’s passed so quickly. Dumping the car. Changing their clothes. Doctoring Andy, and thank god Nile has more recent medic training than he does. Medicine’s come a long way since the Great War. 

She’s good at the patching lecture too. Gave Andy both barrels. That was nice to see, and just thinking of it brings a smile to his face. She’s already one of them, not intimidated in the least by their millennia-old leader.

Joe wakes slowly, when the car rattles to a stop, lifting his head and tensing,reaching for a weapon- but before he reaches his gun he recognizes Nicky’s arms around him, feels him awake and alert, and comes to the rapid conclusion that there isn’t any immediate threat. “We here?” he asks.

“Yeah,” says Andy from the driver’s seat. “We’re here.”

“You should have let me take over driving,” chides Nicky. She’s pale. Exhausted.

“Or me,” adds Nile. But she wouldn’t hear of it.

“Stopping would have just taken longer,” Andy says simply. She gets out of the car, popping the trunk and grabbing her axe and the bag of her clothes. Nicky and Joe’s swords are there, as well as bags for them too - they’d made sure to grab them from the church after they were taken.

“Come, love,” says Nicky as he unbuckles. “A cottage all to ourselves.”

“Yep.” Joe gets off of Nicky’s lap, opening the door and stepping out into the crisp night air. Fresh, unlike it had been in London. In the labs. He glances into the trunk and exhales in relief at the sight of their belongings. He grabs Nicky’s sword first, then his own, hands wrapping around the soft, supple leather. Offers Nicky his sword as he gets out of the car, wondering if they’ll have to chase any animals out of the cottage this time.

He nods thanks as he takes the sword that’s nearly as familiar as the man before him. Grabs his bag and turns for the cottage, waiting for Joe.

Nile heaves a sigh, grabs her gear, and makes a beeline for the cottage Andy’s headed to, falling in behind her. She needs a shower and about a thousand years’ worth of sleep.

She wonders what the longest any of them have slept is.

Joe follows Nicky to their cottage, his bag slung over his shoulder, his footsteps loud on the gravel. It means anyone else’s footsteps would be loud, too. Nicky was always good at keeping an ear out for that. Though it used to be carriages and horses, not cars. Still. 

Nicky ushers Joe in ahead of him, closing and locking the door behind them. Leaning slumped against the door for a moment in his utter relief to just be  _ alone _ .

As soon as the door latches shut, Joe’s shoulders slump, and the weary smile slips from his face. “ _ Home sweet home, love _ ,” he murmurs in Italian. Nowhere feels safe enough, especially not a safehouse that Booker knew, but it would do for now.

“Home is wherever you are,” Nicky reminds him. “Still. It is good to have a little space and time to ourselves, huh?”

“Yes, it is, at that,” he agrees. The cottage smelled old, undisturbed, so different to the sterile and sharp pharmaceutical labs. So much better. “Let’s see if the bath works still, hm?”

He practically melts at the suggestion. “Yes, let’s. It’s either that or roll in the dirt outside. I can’t seem to stop smelling disinfectant.” This place smells earthy. Real. He wants to let it seep into his bones until the lab is a distant memory.

Joe laughs softly. “There’s nothing stopping us from doing both.” He walks across the floor, the wood creaking loud and comfortingly as he steps. Heads for the bathroom, flicking on the lights and looking in. The tiles are dusty, but there’s been no explosion of mold or anything else unseemly, so he heads for the bath, twisting the tap and listening to the water rush on. It comes out dirty for a while, but he waits until it flows clean before he plugs the drain.

“We are staying in a fancy hotel tomorrow,” Nicky insists. “I am tired of dirty showers and sleeping on the floor.”

Or maybe he’s tired of a bunch of other things and he’s taking it out on the cottage.

Joe smiles, though Nicky can’t see it from the living room. “You may have to fight Andy to make that decision,” he points out, though it’s fond.

“It might be best we separate for a time,” he says. “Give them more targets. Merrick was a powerful man, and Copley may have some difficulty covering our tracks.”

Joe pokes his head out of the bathroom and back into the living area. “You think Andy will be okay with just Nile?” With the three of them, at least there were more of them who could take a bullet for her.

Nicky drags a hand down his face. Grabs something off the counter and hurls it at a wall, shattering it in a rain of ceramic and it’s all he can do to keep from doing the same with every other dish in the place.

Joe doesn’t flinch, though he notes distantly that the falling shards of ceramic look a hell of a lot like the water tank as it shattered away from him. He breathes in, slow. Out, again. He’s been through worse deaths before and gotten past them, too. “Why don’t we think about that tomorrow, love,” he suggests softly.

He turns towards the bathroom, exhausted gaze on Joe. “I don’t want to think about it tomorrow. I don’t want to think about anything,” he admits.

This is more than just a death. Or a series of deaths. Or even a betrayal. They’ve lost one of their own. The first since Quyhn.

It is an alien feeling. That one of them is mortal, but they found out and didn’t lose them. That Andy is still here and could die at any moment. Joe doesn’t remember it, all those lifetimes ago. He doubts Nicky does. He’s certain Andy doesn’t. 

And all of it is too much to handle, at the moment. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe in a year. But not just yet.

“Then let’s not think,” he says, walking out, quiet steps as he reaches for Nicky’s forearms, a gentle grasp as he pulls him toward the bathroom.

Nicky lets himself be dragged, spying the steam rising from the water and turning to pull Joe in for a hard hug. “This is one of the long years, isn’t it?”

Joe leans into the embrace, wrapping his arms around him and holding onto him, a tight grasp. “I think so, yes,” he breathes into his shoulder. 

He presses his lips to Yusuf’s shoulder, through his shirt. His neck. His throat, fingertips gliding under the hem of his shirt all the while. Peeling it up off him. Only breaking away as he pulls the shirt up over Joe’s head.

Joe lets him, watching the steam from the bath as his Nicolo graces his skin with his lips, with his fingertips. He lifts his arms, obliging the motion, helping pull his shirt up and off, tossing it aside, as dispensable as all their clothes. He takes the opportunity to set his hands on Nicky’s hips, pushing up, taking his shirt upward with the motion. Once they press in close, they won’t part again, so it’s now or never, really.

Even this distance is too much. The clothes. The handsbreadth of space between their bodies as they remove these ridiculous barriers. Nicky raises his arms, letting Joe drag the suddenly-offending garment off him. And then closes the distance, cupping his cheek like he holds the most precious, breakable, immeasurably priceless thing in the world. Lips pressing to those of the man he loves as grief boils up from his chest with a soft, though unmistakable sound.

As soon as the shirt is out of his hands Joe’s reaching for Nicky again, a hand rising up to cup the back of his neck and kiss him like he’s- well. Not like he’s drowning. But anchoring himself to him, breathing shallow with the ache of that sound rattling in his bones. This is a new grief for them and he doesn’t know how to help Nicky through it but to hold him and kiss him slow and heavy.

He breathes deep for what feels like the first time in months. Years. How can his anger and despair stand in the presence of such strength? His lips move slowly as his hands make their way down, enjoying the trip on their way to free his love of more that separates them. Every inhale seeps into his bones, coiling and filling the brittle space inside until nothing remains but him. Until he finally feels like Nico again.

Joe clings to him, kissing him long and heavy as Nicky’s hands move to undress him. It takes a moment for him to recall that he should reciprocate so they can both get into the bath. Still trying to catch up to the fact that they’re safe. That his Nicky is back and safe with him. That he’s safe, too. He keeps expecting that he’ll open his eyes to the tank again.

“Shall we?” he asks once they’ve rid themselves of the clothes. He waves Joe in ahead of him, intending to sit at his back as they soak. Arms around him. Nicky always gets to sleep that way, so Joe gets to be the little spoon in the tub.

Joe climbs into the water, hesitating only for a moment before gripping the edge of the tub and getting in, leaning forward so Nicky can climb in too. It’s a small enough bath that it’s cramped, but neither of them care.

Nicky steps in and lowers himself down into the almost-too-hot water with an almost obscene sigh. “Get down here,” he says to Joe. “The water is perfect but my arms are empty.”

He does have an excellent view from here, and it’s all he can do to keep from biting Joe’s ass.

Joe smiles, a crooked little thing that Nicky can’t see, and holds onto the edge of the tub as he lowers himself back and down into Nicky’s arms, making a soft sound as the warm water hits his skin.

“Been wanting to get you alone,” Nicky sighs as he slides his hands around to splay on Joe’s abdomen. “For at least a decade.”

Joe exhales a laugh, relaxing into Nicky’s chest. Into the arms wrapped around him. Sometimes he misses sleeping like this. But never for the cost it came with. “It feels like it’s been that long, doesn’t it?”

He kisses Joe’s shoulder. “Longer. At least a century since that speech in the truck. Which was beautiful. As they always are. You had those idiots enraptured.” Another kiss. “This idiot, too.” There have been many such impassioned speeches over the years. Each plays his soul like fingers on a mandolin. “But for the record: it was in poor grammar. You added a superfluous ‘of’.”

Joe smiles, at that. Trust Nicky to still be hearing the words, long after he spoke them. “Is that what you took away from it?” he asks. He doesn’t exactly think, in those moments. Alight with fury and rage and he just says everything that sits in his chest about the beauty of his love, of his world, his everything. “Where was it?”

“...his heart overflows with a kindness of which this world is not worthy of…” he whispers as though it’s a prayer. Words branded across his soul. “My incurable, impetuous, impossible romantic,” he says, laying his cheek between Yusuf’s shoulders.

Oh- somehow his breath catches in his throat at the way Nicolo whispers them. The tickle against the hairs on the back of his neck as he speaks so softly. He swallows hard, resting a hand over the one Nicky has on his abdomen, squeezing it. “I suppose I did not  _ need _ that second ‘of’,” he concedes, relaxing back against him.

“I forgive you for being inefficient when you’re impassioned,” Nicky says, smiling into his back.

Joe laughs softly, the sound low in his chest. “I appreciate that,” he says earnestly. Can feel the way Nicky’s lips pull up against his skin, can feel the smile pressed into him.

“But only then,” he insists. “The rest of the times you’re inefficient are simply lazy and I no longer have the God-granted right to absolve you of your sins.”

He snorts. “What happened to it? Someone take it from you?” 

“In a manner of speaking, you did. I left the priesthood for the Crusades. I left the Crusades for you.”

Joe smiles at that. He did. And Yusuf left the Crusades for him. “And yet, you’ve had it for the past nine-hundred odd years.”

“Had what?”

“The God-granted right to absolve me of my sin of…” he pauses dramatically, as if recounting his notes, “inefficient prose.”

“As your partner, I’m only allowed to forgive you for sodomy. The rest is up to God.” He makes the sign of the cross over Joe’s back.

Joe snickers. “I’m sure we will have much to answer for should we ever make it up there,” he says, as Nicky’s hand traces over his back. “Least of all, the sodomy. Though we could work on making that one the most prolific of our sins.”

“I thought we already were? Plus if we get to heaven, do I have to fight your other seventy-one virgins? That sounds exhausting.”

“You’ve fought through greater armies to get to me,” Joe points out, though his shoulders shake with a quiet laughter.

“Yes. Already. I should have earned a rest by the time I get to heaven. Perhaps we could let the 71 virgins have each other? That sounds kinder.”

“It seems a better approach,” he agrees. “You’re the only one I need, after all.” He traces his thumb over the back of Nicky’s hand, slow, idle circles through the golden hairs there.

“And you are the only one I’ve ever needed. That is why heaven assigned me the honour of being your first virgin.”

“Oh, heaven did that, did it? Did you get it in a vision?” he teases warmly. The ghosts of the lab almost chased off.

“Email. Next to a very interesting proposal from a Nigerian prince.”

“What was the subject, ‘900-year-old hot singles in your area?’”

“It was a picture of you, with the caption ‘When 900 years you age, look as good you will not.’”

“And you were upset about an extra ‘ _ of _ ’?”

“Yoda gets special dispensation.”

“I see how it is. The  _ alien _ gets a pass, and I do not.”

“God is a fickle bastard,” he replies. “And you do not, in fact, look as good.”

“As Yoda?” he asks, laughing, his head falling back over Nicky’s shoulder.

“Alright I concede: you’re better looking than Yoda. Not as good as baby Yoda though.” Nobody looks as good as baby Yoda. It’s a law or something.

“You’ve been watching too much tv,” Joe says, still laughing.

“Only when I’m not watching you. Besides, you get to be in the front when we’re watching tv, remember?”

“I do not pay attention most of the time,” he admits. He watched them because Nicky loved them, and he loved hearing Nicky laugh.

“Because you wish I’d roll on top of you and find other things to do,” he says, breath hot on Joe’s neck.

Joe exhales hot, at the way the words brush against his ear. “Always,” he answers, rolling his head to the side to grin at him. It almost reaches his eyes. 

Nicky grabs a cloth and begins to slowly clean them both, Joe first. Going silent to enjoy the task. The meandering over blemishless skin and hard muscle. Finally letting them relax into each other as they’ve needed since that night in the safehouse they met Nile.

Joe drifts off as Nicky takes care of him, relaxing back in the warmth of the water and his embrace. The planes of muscle he lays against, the solid and gentle caresses with which he cleans him. Grounding him, as he lets the phantom aches drift away, himself with them.

Nicky watches him sleep, something he doesn’t get to do nearly often enough. Humming old hymns he learned before his first death and just laying in the water enjoying having him safe and whole and where he belongs.

\---

Joe manages to rest until the water cools.

It’s all he gets, before he feels it around his neck, bringing him back with the rush of the knowledge that he’s drowning, a gasped ‘ghk’ making it out of his throat as he thrashes upright, already trying to remember where his belt ended up-

One second they’re drifting calmly and the next Joe is thrashing in his arms, making a wretched, awful sound. It catches in Nicky’s gut like a rusted blade and he loosens his arms without letting go entirely.

“Joe! Yusuf.  _ It’s me. Your Nicolo.”  _ He shifts to Arabic halfway through, a centuries-old habit. They always default to their first languages when they’re upset.

Joe doesn’t speak at first. It takes long moments to realize he’s breathing  _ air _ , not drowning, not losing precious seconds trying to orient himself before it drags him under agan. He’s gripping the edges of the tub so hard his hands ache, his heart hammering out of his chest, before he shudders, moaning a soft, “ _ Shit. _ ”

He’s gasping for air. Joe is choking for air and there’s nothing to choke on but they’re in  _ water _ and he’s choking. Nicky pulls the plug with his foot as he rests a hand between Joe’s shoulders. “I am here. I have you. What do you need?”

His chest is rising and falling shallow, fast, panicked breaths. “ _ I need- I need… _ ” he doesn’t know. The ache has spread up to his shoulders, his whole body tensed for a fight. “ _ I need to be dry. _ ” He doesn’t know if that’ll help. He’s not even aware he’s still speaking Arabic. 

Nicky surges up out of the water, hooking an arm around Joe and hauling him out of the tub before tossing a towel on the floor one-handed and lowering him down on top of it. Or trying to.

Joe doesn’t follow as easily as he would like. It takes effort to unclench his hands from the porcelain. He manages it, eventually, as Nicolo stands and pulls him out, guiding him back down, this time onto the hard stone floor. There’s a soft noise coming from somewhere. He doesn’t realize it’s him, stuck in his throat, rattling.

He pushes Joe down onto his back, following him down to straddle his hips. Grabbing another towel and pressing it to Joe’s cheek as he looks down on him, giving him something to focus on.  _ “You are safe,” _ he says.  _ “I was not there in the lab. Remember? They separated us. So if I am here…” _

If he is here. If he is here… “ _ then. I am- not there,”  _ he manages, the weight on his hips holding him there. Holding him under the revelation, the cotton pressing against his cheek and his beard and his neck. 

All of a sudden, the fight rushes out of him, and his head drops back onto the stone with a quiet groan, his hands reaching up, hovering for a moment, shaky, before settling on Nicky’s thighs.

He dries Yusuf’s face, slowly, with the towel. Careful not to obscure his vision while he does.  _ “What did they do to you, my heart?” _ he asks, other hand moving to grip one of Joe’s hands.

Joe takes a deep breath, the melody of Nicky’s voice in his tongue soothing him, little by little. “ _ They held me in a tank, full of water. I was unable to count how many times I drowned until I was able to break it.”  _ A millennia has taught him that hiding something from Nicolo to ‘spare’ him did anything but. They spoke to each other now, that was how they healed.

Nico’s chest heaves in a silent sob as he realises what the bastards did. It is their worst fear. To live and die and live and die over and over and over again, caught in the horrific cycle of endless pain and anguish. Quynh. Like Quynh. A tiny taste. Yet an eternity.

He chokes it back because Yusuf needs him now. Needs him to be the strong one and hold him together. “But you did,” he says with a vicious smile. “You broke it, and you made them pay. You rescued yourself. Nile had to rescue me. Like a damsel. And she the brave knight.” Now his smile turns soft. “Or the dragon.”

Joe laughs, a ragged, soft thing. “ _ No. You rescued me. _ ” It’s always been him. Always. “ _ You gave me the purpose I needed to remember enough to fight. _ ” It was all he could remember, between flashes of death and water. Nicolo. Nicky. He had to get back to him. It was all he had. Nicky and a belt in his hand.

He shakes his head. “They do not have you now. I have you. I have you here and safe and they are all dead.” The towel moves down to Joe’s chest, even though Nicky’s dripping onto it, water running rivulets out of his hair.

“ _ You have me, _ ” he repeats softly. The act of speaking cementing that he is here. No air bubbles follow. No burn of water in his lungs. He is safe here, under Nicky. His back to the stone and the water drying off of him.

“Let’s go get dry in the bedroom, huh?” And not on the cold floor. Not where he’s dripping all over the man who just wants to not be wet right now.

“Yes,” he breathes, the word sounding rougher in English. “Okay.” The further away from the bathroom, the better, at the moment. 

Nicky rises up off him, quickly wrapping a towel around his own waist and tucking it in before offering Joe a hand up.

Joe takes it, clasping his hand solidly, letting himself be pulled up to his feet, and he reaches out, snagging another towel - the last towel - off the rack to wrap it around himself. Staring into the tub, as the last of the water drains away.

“Come,” he says as he turns Joe from the sight. “Would you like to sleep with my arms around you tonight?”

Some things are more important than physical safety.

Joe turns away from it at Nicky’s behest. Swallowing hard. “I- yes. I think so.” He needs that, perhaps. Just this night. 

“Let me do a little rearranging first.” He maneuvers Joe over to the chair and backs him into it. “Sit. I’ll do the rest.”

The backs of Joe’s knees hit the edge of the chair and he sits back into it with a tight swallow. “I can help,” he insists, as if Nicky would let him.

“You can, but you won’t. Your job is to be the eye candy while I do all the work.” He grins, and it reaches all the way to his eyes.

Joe exhales, but there’s a warmth in Nicky’s expression that is contagious - it always is. “Is this revenge for making you model for my paintings?” he asks, sounding a little more himself.

“Is giving me breasts revenge for all the times I decided to… distract you. When I was supposed to be posing?” he counters as he slides the dressers away from the bed and turns it so it’s sideways against the wall. He doesn’t like having a window on one side of the bed and a door on the other. This is the best configuration. Then he pushes one dresser close to the head of the bed and sets their weapons on it. 

“Done,” he says, turning back to Joe.

“That was a bet that  _ you _ started and signed me up for,” Joe answers, though the smile still pulls at the corners of his lips. He stands once his toes are no longer in danger of getting crushed and strides across the small room to him.

“And you lost, by giving me beautiful breasts that  _ should _ have won me that bet. And then a photorealistic penis.”

“I do so very much love it,” Joe says ruefully. “Additions that do not exist are so much easier than cutting something beloved to me,” he says, stepping into him, pressing up against his chest and murmuring the last words into his cheek.

“You love  _ me _ ,” he counters. “The dick is just an added bonus.” He holds him close a moment. “Clothes?” he finally asks.

“Yes,” Joe answers softly. To both statements. He is not so shaken that he would rather sleep naked and entirely unprepared. Even if the bag of their clothes is back in the living room.

Nicky takes his hand, loathe to be even a room apart. Leads him back to their bags and carries them back to the bedroom, breaking away only long enough to throw on some shorts and a t-shirt.

Joe grabs the softest whatever his hands land on first, pulling the shorts and tank top on, and taking Nicky’s hand again. He tugs him to the bed, bone-tired suddenly. Wants nothing more than to lay down and have Nicky’s arm around him, reminding him. Keeping him here.

Nicky lets himself be pulled, laying down behind Joe for the first time in decades. Maybe a century? Pulling him in against his chest and holding him tight. “There will be no water tonight,” he whispers. “Only me surrounding you.”

“Just you, love,” Joe repeats softly, pressing back into him. Curling his arm over Nicky’s, holding on. Letting the darkness pull him under again. Warmer now. Safe. There is no water here. Just the embrace of Nicky’s arms, of his love.

**Author's Note:**

> obligatory mention that we have an old guard [discord](https://discord.gg/kDJpjxx) for all y'all who want to talk about this wonderful world with us!


End file.
